AN: Recap for anyone who hasn't read my other fic, The Victor From Twelve: The Capitol is forced to pull the last two tributes out of the arena or risk losing them both to a forest fire that had grown out of the gamemakers' control. While they're frantically trying to save at least one tribute in the hovercraft, one of them dies, leaving the other to become the victor. But it was an extremely close Games.
In this 3-parter, I'm going to try out an ending I briefly considered for TVFT before I settled on the one above. Hope you enjoy!
Chapter 1: THERE CAN BE
If my spear had only hit its mark the first time, I wouldn't be clinging to the thin upper-branches of an evergreen to survive. I wouldn't be waiting tensely for my grip to fail, for the smoke to addle my brains and send me plummeting down into the fire below. I wouldn't be inching higher, higher, for fear of an axe blade connecting with my ankles.
The price I pay for missing the girl from One by a mile.
The branches up here are too skinny to hold my weight like this. I'm almost at peace knowing Emerald, below me, is having a similar problem, but it hasn't yet stopped her ascent. I kick at the Career as she comes closer. When it does little to help, I dare to let go with one hand and make a slash at her with my knife. Anything to keep her from grabbing me, from pulling me down.
The flames are rising higher, an upward draft sending a swarm of glowing ashes into the air. Emerald coughs so violently I'm convinced she's swallowed one of them. It only stalls her for a moment.
Miraculously, one of my kicks makes it to her head. She slides down half a foot in surprise, the hatchet falling from her hand. We both watch it plummet, disappearing below the smoke line. That's when her hands begin to tremble.
Her hold on the branch doesn't last long after that. One missed foothold, and suddenly she's slipping; she no longer has the strength to keep her grip.
I'm going to live. I whisper in my mind. Her mouth forms an "O".
It's almost over. It's hard to watch her fingers clamber for purchase against the bark.
One more kick would end this, I think, but I'm already grabbing for her hand.
She screams as she dangles above the flames, her voice as raw as an open wound. And she's too heavy; I can't hold her up. Our hands slick with sweat and grime, my strength sapped from scaling the tree, there's no way I can pull her back up by myself.
Suddenly, her hand slips out of mind. I reach down quickly, leaning away from the tree, trying to take a hold of her wrist as she falls, but she's dropping too fast. And I've leaned too far. Without warning, her weight jerks me out of the tree and into the blistering, smoke-filled air. It all happens in the same moment.
The heat grows more intense as we fall together, past the smoke and into the heart of the flames.
...
The air leaves my lungs as soon as I hit the ground, my skin blistering from the heat of the fire. I can't move. I can't breathe. I'm surrounded by the sounds of destruction. But after a moment, even the deafening noise of the fire fades away.
The next sound I hear is not the trumpets of victory. It's the steady beep of a heart monitor. My eyelids feel heavy, like I've gone weeks without sleep. But I know I must have been here for a while, because I can breathe. I can move, a little. I can even see, until the room's white walls start to hurt my eyes and I have to close them again. They were open just long enough to tell that I'm alone.
But I am alive. I'm a victor now.
The next time I'm aware of my surroundings, I find that I'm able to stay awake longer. I can eat, too, if only just a small amount. My arms are above the covers this time. The right one's bound tightly in a splint, the left riddled with needles and tubes in the bend of my elbow. I notice that my skin is grafted in patches, red, raw. I look like something created in a lab.
Days pass in the same routine—eating small portions, sleeping, watching my skin heal into something that looks more my own—until I receive my first visitor, a man clothed in the purple robes of a gamemaker. At first, I think he's come to congratulate me. As he nears my bed, his expression tells me otherwise.
"Hello, Mister Zane," he greets me, his voice a low rumble. "Welcome back."
When I don't respond, his dark eyes have time to scrutinize my bed-ridden form as he waits for me to speak. I feel self-conscious, knowing I must look like the arena chewed me up and spat me out. But I can't bring myself to reply. He can't be the first person I speak to. He can't be.
"I have some news." His tone doesn't make me feel at ease, and the way his accent hisses out the letter s isn't helping, either. "It is old news. We, as a unit, voted to withhold this information from you until you were…" He looks at me. "…er, strong enough to absorb it."
Your unit never seemed to care about my health before. I want to tell him, but I want him to continue more. I sit up slightly, wincing a little as I do.
"Currently," the gamemaker says, "That is, now and for the foreseeable future, the only people who know that you are alive exist inside this building, and within the President's mansion. Do you understand?"
It takes a minute to sink in. And still, I shake my head.
The gamemaker takes a deep breath. "We have not released the news of your victory to the public yet, because," he says, "When you fought Miss Addington on your last day in the arena, there was not a decisive victory."
Not a decisive—I blink, frowning. Something comes out of my mouth before I can stop it.
"I-I'm the victor." My lungs are still burning.
The purple-robed man begins to explain. And he makes it abundantly clear that no, I am not the victor. Because the margin of victory was not incredibly small; there was no margin of victory, because there was no victory. Emerald survived.
My face blanches, and I'm lost in the room's pale walls. I try to understand that I am sitting before one of the individuals who tried to engineer my destruction, alone, sturdy as a stick insect, ravaged with burn scars and broken ribs and other wounds that went much deeper, and I have not won the Hunger Games.
I have not won the Hunger Games.